


If there was a right way

by oceantears



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Acephobia, Angst, Aromantic, Aromantic Sherlock Holmes, Asexual Sherlock Holmes, Asexuality, Fluff, Internalized Acephobia, Internalized Arophobia, M/M, Misunderstandings, Platonic Kissing, Platonic Soulmates, Queerplatonic Relationships, Soulmates, Soulnames, Zucchinis, arophobia, qpr, queerplatonic soulmates
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-17
Updated: 2019-06-05
Packaged: 2019-06-28 17:43:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,929
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15711981
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oceantears/pseuds/oceantears
Summary: People nothavinga soulmate was rare, but not unheard of. It was always a tragedy when one found out they didn't have that one person that would complement them just right, would bring out all the best in them. So yes, not having a soulmate was, while rare, not unheard of.But not wanting your soulmate? Having one but feeling repulsed by the mere thought of any of the typical soulmate-stuff - holding hands, kissing, having sex, building a family,having a relationship- that wasn't normal. It wasn'tokay. It was a sure sing that you must be broken.Sherlock was, as far as he knew the only broken person in his family, his school, his college, the whole damn world.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hi!  
> English is not my first language, please point out where I made mistakes!
> 
> What is asexuality?  
> An asexual person experiences little to no sexual attraction. If an asexual wants to have sex depends on the person, some people are sex-repulsed, meaning they do not want sex and feel repulsed by the idea, some enjoy sex, some have sex for their partner.  
> Please keep in mind that Sherlock does not represent all asexual and aromantics!
> 
> What is aromanticism?  
> An aromantic person feels little to no romantic attraction. Some aromantics are romance-repulsed, but not all, and some may enter queerplatonic relationships.
> 
> What's a queerplatonic relationship (qpr)?  
> A qpr is a relationship that is not quite romantic but also not a regular friendship. The way i see it, it's the grey zone between platonic and romantic relationship. Not all people think that qprs exist, I personally do.  
> The partners in a qpr are called zucchinis (which i won't call Sherlock and John).  
> Also, Sherlock's and John's coming qpr is not the only way a qpr can work. 
> 
> I do not mean to imply that an asexual / aromantic person is in any way, shape, or form broken. Sherlock's thoughts on that topic aren't mine, but they do reflect what some aros/aces can think before they discover that yes, they are normal, and yes, there is a word for it.  
> You are not broken.
> 
> Please enjoy! :)

People not _having_ a soulmate was rare, but not unheard of. It was always a tragedy when one found out they didn't have that one person that would complement them just right, would bring out all the best in them. So yes, not having a soulmate was, while rare, not unheard of.

 

But not wanting your soulmate? Having one but feeling repulsed by the mere thought of any of the typical soulmate-stuff - holding hands, kissing, having sex, building a family, _having a relationship_ \- that wasn't normal. It wasn't _okay_. It was a sure sing that you must be broken.

 

Sherlock was, as far as he knew the only broken person in his family, his school, his college, the whole damn world.  
And he was glad for it. 

 

 

He had grown up with parents that were soulmates, surrounded by teachers, adults, friends, that had told him more stories about _the one_ , your soulmate, the one person that would complement you, make you your best self, than he could count, and he hated it.  
For as long as he remembered he had found all the talk about soulmates boring, uneccessary, and, quite frankly, repulsive. 

 

He couldn't imagine having one, _being_ one, doing all the things the adults talked about, either openly or so that the children would preferably not catch it.

Sherlock hated it.

 

It had taken him a long time, years upon years, to realize that no, that feeling of disgust, of _wrongness_ when thinking about his romantic soulmate wouldn't go away, and that yes, he was the only one that thought so. The only one that felt so.

He was the only freak in this whole wide world and out there was someone who was supposed to love him, to complete him, to be the missing part of his soul.  
Someone Sherlock wished with all his might didn't exist.

 

It _was_ possible, after all, there were people who didn't have a soulmate, people who were either born without one or whose soulmate died before they turned eighteen.

Eighteen was the magical age, the one some unknown force, either the universe or some bearded, bored, sadist up in the skies had decided to deem the age at which humans were old enough to know who they were to spent possible years looking after, only to die by their side, old wrinkeld, and, apparently, _complete._

 

Sherlock didn't feel incomplete, he was happy being on his own, and he wished he had someone to blame for this whole ridiculous concept that someone or something had invented. People weren't sure who or what had come up with the system of soulmates, opinions differed, but Sherlock happily held onto the belief that some sadistic scientist had manipulated all their genes years ago to make the human race as miserable as possible.

 

And it could be miserable, having a soulmate.  
It could hurt, could tear couples, familys apart, could tear _people_ apart.  
Sherlock had heard of horrible stories, children banned from their parent's houses, disowned and hated because the gender of the person whose name was on the child's chest was the same as the child's. He had heard of couples, marriages breaking up with each other because their names didn't match, suicides even because the names that appeared magically on the 18th birthday weren't the ones they had hoped for.  
Or because there wasn't a name at all.

 

Mycroft, for example, didn't have a soulmate. No one knew why it happened, why some people never got their soulmate, the space above their heart left painfully bare, but it happened.  
Sherlock had seen Mycroft when his 18th birthday had come and gone, he had studied his brother's face and he knew that he would never wish anyone, not even his worst enemy, the terrible gift of waking up on your 18th birthday without a name on your chest.  
He wouldn't wish it on anyone but himself.

 

Because he wasn't normal, wasn't whole, was a _freak_ for not wanting a soulmate, for feeling wrong when even thinking about it, about basically being forced into a relationship with someone he didn't, couldn't love.

He hoped that there were other people like him out there, but even if there were, which he highly doubted, he wouldn't dare to tell anyone about the way he was wrong, broken anyways.

He had once, had told Mycroft and he had come to regret it.

 

Sherlock had thought that maybe, Mycroft would understand, because he didn't _have_ anyone and Sherlock didn't _want_ anyone.  
Mycroft hadn't understood.

 

"Wait until your 18th birthday", he had told sixteen-year-old Sherlock, no, had _sneered_ at him, "wait until then and if you really wake up without a name on your chest, see how you feel. See if you still don't want a soulmate. Because I promise you, you will want one. You will, Sherlock."  
With that he had left Sherlock sitting in his room, feeling sick, because if not even Mycroft understood, didn't _want_ to understand, then who would?

 

No one, that was who.

 

\------------

 

When Sherlock had woken up on his eighteenth birthday, he hadn't looked at his chest for the next few hours, lying in his bed until it was 10am and his mother had been knocking at the door, softly but steadily, asking Sherlock to come out for at least fifteen minutes. 

 

When Sherlock had come out, she had asked him if he had a name, what his name was, and when Sherlock had told her that he hadn't looked, that he _wasn't going to_ , she had unbuttoned his shirt gently, ignoring his protest, pushing his hands away. She had needed to, Sherlock knew, needed to see.  
That knowledge didn't make it better.

 

His mother had looked at his chest, read the name written on it and had smiled, relieved that at least one of her sons had a name, a soulmate.  
"You have one, Sherlock, you have a soulmate!"  
Then she had left too tell his father about the news, and Sherlock had taken one look at his chest, read the upside down name, buttoned his shirt up and went to the bathroom where he threw up.

 

As he retched and coughed, tears in his eyes, there was the name, _his_ name swirling around his mind, making him feel sick to his stomach.  
_John Watson_.

 

 

\-------------

When Sherlock was twenty, he found a word, no, two words for why he didn't want a soulmate, even felt repulsed by the mere thought of having one.  
They didn't help him, didn't magically fix him. In the eyes of the others, possibly in the eyes of his soulmate, he was still broken, but it was nice to have something to hold onto nevertheless.  
To have something he could potentially throw at his soulmate if he didn't want to back off.

_Asexual. Aromantic._

The words felt like weapons in his tongue.

\--------

 

At the age of twenty-one he found another word to arm himself with.

_Sex-repulsed._

 

\----------

The first time Sherlock wondered why his soulmate had never tried to contact him, never tried to find him, he had just turned twenty-three and founded his own detective agency.

He'd help the police and everyone else who needed help with anything that needed solving, and he loved it. He loved to help, to solve the riddles - against payment of course.  
Just because he loved what he did, it didn't mean it wasn't still his job and he needed money to keep himself alive.  
Sherlock would help anyone who needed his help, who could pay for his help, but only if it didn't involve soulmates.

 

He'd solved gruesome murders, had discovered rings of human trafficking, had seen the worst of the worst, things that would forever haunt him in his sleep, but searching for soulmates was something he'd never do, a service he'd never offer.  
There were too many risks related to that, the chance of stumbling over his own soulmate too high.  
Because he didn't want to meet _John Watson_ , the man he feared, the man who must be alive because every so often Sherlock would feel a weak tug at his heart, a command of the universe or some sort of higher power to go looking for his soulmate. He ignored it with all his might and hoped that the other man, that _John Watson_ would do the same.

 

And therefore, because he didn't want anyone to think that he'd help them find his soulmate, a thing he houldn't even imagine wanting, he wrote on his homepage that he didn't do that, that he'd never help anyone with their search for _the one._  
And maybe, just maybe, this refusal wasn't just because if the risks of finding John Watson. Maybe it also was because he didn't want anyone to see how broken he was, even with his three words he used like shield and weapon.

 

\---------

 

He'd known that he should've written it in bold letters on his front door instead of just on his homepage, but Mrs. Hudson had insisted that _I will not help you find your soulmate_ wouldn't be written on any of the surfaces in her house because it might come off as a little passive-aggressive.  
So Sherlock hadn't done it, instead hoping that his clients would read his blog - and hopefully also the very informative section about tobacco ash - prior to coming to him so that they'd know what he did and didn't offer.

 

This client obviously hadn't.

 

It was a man, a few inches shorter than him with dirty blonde hair. He'd been accompanied by another man with brown curls, who'd dropped him off in Sherlock's office, which was simultaneously his living room, with the encouraging words of: "If anyone can help you, it's him. And you need help, I know you."

 

And with that the other man had left, leaving the blonde, who seemed to be a few years oder than Sherlock himself standing in his ~~living room~~ office, obviously deeply uncomfortable.  
Sherlock had said nothing for the last few minutes of him standing there, looking at his room, but he'd made some observations.  
The man was about three to six years older that himself, felt a bit trapped here, had no idea who Sherlock was, as his friend had dragged him here without telling him who he was bringing him to. He had been in the army and had been hurt there, which had let to him being dismissed. He'd lived in London for less than a year, found it hard to get used to civillian life and was here to-  
"I'm here to find my soulmate.", the man said, standing straighter as he spoke, meeting Sherlock's eyes.  
"Mike didn't tell me who you are, but I suppose you're some sort of soulmate-detective, and since I haven't found mine yet. . ."  
He trailed off, having seemingly lost his train of thought but recovered quickly, shaking his head.  
"Well, I was hoping, or rather, Mike was hoping, you could help me. For your usual payment of course. My name is-"

 

Sherlock had taken too long to interrupt him, he should have said something the moment the other man hat used the words 'soulmate detective'. But he had been taken aback by his voice, which was smooth and strong, and Sherlock had had to recover from the initial shock this thought had brought with it and so it had taken a bit longer. 

 

But now he had gathered his wits again, like his mother would have said, and he interrupted the other man, voice strong and clear.

 

"It seems your friend misunderstood something. I am a detective, yes, but a Consulting Detective and not one for soulmates. In fact, soulmates are the only cases I won't accept. If you need help with anything else but finding your soulmate, I'll accept the case - if it's interesting enough - but I will not help you with that. Your friend obviously didn't read my page, there is all the information you'll need. It's DetectiveSherlockHolmes.com."

 

After this little speech, Sherlock leaned back in his stool, wondering if the man would have anything of interest for him. Maybe-

 

"Your name is Sherlock Holmes?", the blonde asked, and the slight croak in his voice made Sherlock look up, surprised.

 

"Yes, as I said. If you have any questions I'll answer them, but I would strongly advise you to-"

 

The man interrupted him, voice slightly more croaky than before, and now it really concerned Sherlock. Did he have an illness he could catch? Sherlock really disliked being sick, and if it would happen because of one client that hadn't even told him his name-

 

"My. . .", said the man, taking a deep breath, preparing for saying the words that would completely mess up Sherlock's life, "My name is John Watson."


	2. The game is on

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I'm not totally happy with this chapter and I apologize for the long wait. Soulmate-wise, there's only very little progress but we've got a murder case at our hands!  
> Therefore, a few warnings are neccessary:  
> Mentions of strangulation, slight mutilation, blood and well, murder. All of this happens in the paragraph that starts with "John had the decency to"  
> and it's over two paragraphs further down, so continuing from "Sherlock stood up" is safe again. :)  
> A short mention of blood and flesh in the paragraph that starts with "Lestrade nodded" but the next one is safe again (and important for context!)
> 
> So, I hope you enjoy it, even thoughit's not soulmate-focussed, but don't worry, we'll get there soon!  
> have fun!

Sherlock wished he could hate John Watson. He wished he could despise the man whose name was on his chest; the man fate had thought would be the one who'd complete someone who wasn't incomplete, fix someone who wasn't broken.  
He wanted to hate him but he didn't. He couldn't.

 

That didn't mean he was particularly happy to have met him, though.

 

\----------

It had been three weeks since he'd met John Watson for the first time and they had not actually talked afterwards.  
After their initial meeting, after John had told Sherlock his name, it had taken the younger an embarrassing amount of time to recover from the shock.  
He had sat in his chair silently, staring at the blonde until John had grown concerned and had hesitantly touched his arm.  
And then, snapped out of his stupor, Sherlock had dismissed John rather abruptly, nearly shoving him out of his apartment, not listening to one word he had said, hoping that his rude behaviour would be enough to scare the man off.

 

It hadn't been.

 

John had tried again and again to contact Sherlock - his _soulmate_ and Sherlock flinched at the mere sound of the word - but the younger man had barely given John a chance to talk to him, to explain what he wanted.  
Sherlock was pretty sure he knew what John wanted, anyways.

The connection between soulmates was almost always a romantic one, Sherlock had only ever heard of one pair of soulmates that had not chosen to enter a romantic relationship. And the only reason for that had been that one of the two had already had a wife and family when the soulmates had met, both well into their fifties.

 

It seemed hopeless to Sherlock - his unwanted connection to John Watson would surely become even more unwanted if he would actually meet up with the man and listen to what he had to say.  
So even though Sherlock had told the blonde in no uncertain terms when they'd first met that he'd not ever enter a romantic relationship with him, he didn't think that the message hat quite reached John's ears. At least not if the frequent texts he sent the Consulting Detective were any indicator.

 

To be fair, the messages he sent Sherlock were not in the least of a romantic nature but Sherlock was convinced that he wouldn't receive them if John didn't want something from him. And this something was almost certainly a romantic relationship.  
Sherlock's stomach clenched at the mere thought of entering such a relationship and he cursed himself for the hundredth time for leaving his phone number on his website, where John had obviously found it.

And just then, another message came in, making the phone Sherlock held clutched in his hand emit another sound.

_Could we please meet up? We've got a lot to talk about._

Sherlock clenched his teeth. This was the third message this day and it was only half past one.  
Considering that John was little more than a stranger to him, it seemed like an abundance.

 

\-------------

A month after John and Sherlock had met, the messages stopped.  
Sherlock had not replied to a single one, and for some reason he could not help but feel a little guilty about it. John had been nothing but kind in his messages, had even stopped asking for an encounter, his messages only asking how Sherlock was or telling him about small things that happened during his day, like the blue bird he had seen on a wednesday afternoon.  
As soon as that memory entered Sherlock's mind, he shook his head in annoyance.  
Why did he remember such details? It was almost as if his subconscious wanted him to keep thinking of the blonde man.  
And John was just that - a reminder.  
A reminder of how wrong Sherlock truly was, how _broken._

 

At that thought, Sherlock gripped the edge of the kitchen table, at which he was sitting, hard.  
Rationally, logically he _knew_ that he was neither wrong nor broken, that he was perfectly okay and that his sexual or romantic attraction did not mean he was incomplete.

He knew that.

But sometimes, it was hard.  
Sometimes it was hard for Sherlock, to wake up with a black name on his chest that stood in stark contrast to his skin, a name that'd always remember him that he was not the way he was supposed to be.  
That in the eyes of many, he _was_ broken. Incomplete. Emotionless.

And he knew that if he'd ever tell John just why exactly he would never even think of entering a romantic, or worse, a sexual relationship with him, John - his soulmate, the one person who was supposed to accept you as you were - would also see him as broken.

Sherlock forcefully shoved his kitchen chair back, shaking his head to get rid of those thoughts.  
He needed a new case, even if it were just a six on his scale, anything to keep him from thinking about Watson.  
It was pathetic; really, it was exactly the type of behaviour he despised in soulmates, the obsession over their other half.  
Sherlock grabbed his coat from the hanger, pocketed his phone and went out the front door. A walk would surely clear his mind and maybe he'd even get a call from a client or Lestrade so that he could finally take on a new case.

\--

Two weeks after his impromptu walk which had lead to exactly nothing but sore feet and a sour mood, Sherlock finally received the long awaited call.  
Lestrade had a new murder for him, a double homicide just a few blocks down. It was perfect - the thrill of the chase would surely be enough for Sherlock to ignore John Watson, even if just for a few hours.  
After all, he was very good at ignoring people when he wanted to.

 

Or at least he was as long as they weren't standing at _his_ crime scene.

"What are you doing here?“ he snapped at the blonde who stood near the bodies, talking to Donovan of all people.

Watson - for Sherlock had taken to calling him by his last name rather than the more intimate 'John' - looked up sharply. His eyes widened as he saw Sherlock and he opened his mouth to say something before closing it again and taking a step back. Sherlock frowned. "I'm looking at the bodies," replied Watson rather unhelpfully, and Sherlock barely suppressed an eye-roll.

"Well that much is obvious, but what are you doing here? Who allowed you to come? Where is Lestrade?"  
John threw Sherlock a glare and straightened up to his full height, which admittedly wasn't that much. "DI Lestrade asked me to come, seeing as I'm a doctor and qualified to examine the bodies. Why are you here? So far I've gotten the impression that you aren't all too willing to actually help people with their problems."

Sherlock stiffened. "As I already told you, I take on all cases but those to do with finding soulmates. And I'd thank you for never assuming anything about me again."  
At that, Watson looked as if he wanted to do nothing more than punch his soulmate in the face.  
Lucky for Sherlock, Lestrade chose just that moment to appear at the crime scene, correctly interpreting the situation and placing himself to stand between Sherlock and John, shielding them from each other.

"Sherlock, I'm glad you could make it." He gave the man a small nod and a smile. "I'm afraid we haven't got enough people for this case, and to be totally honest, even if we had, we'd be pretty lost. So, if you're willing to take a look..."  
He threw a quick glance at John standing behind him and continued with a little more force. "And I asked Doctor Watson to come since we need a medical professional and our usual one is abroad. So if you two could stop fighting, that'd be incredibly helpful."

John had the decency to look vaguely ashamed while Sherlock simply huffed and turned to the bodies.  
They were of two women, both in their mid-twenties. They were lying next to each other, hands so close they were almost touching and both of them had been strangulated. Their tongues were swollen and the blonde woman's eyes had rolled into her head, revealing the whites. John and Sherlock both squatted down next to one of them, John examining their physical wounds, Sherlock looking for less obvious clues.

The brunette woman's ring finger had a line around it that was less tan than the rest if her finger, a sure indicator that a wedding band had been taken off recently. The blonde's hands were bare and there was no sign of such a ring on them. Both were wearing make-up and dressed quite nicely, in dresses and high-heels. The brunette's lipstick was smudged, traces of which could be found on her friend's lips. Sherlock asked one of the surrounding detectives to lift the women so he could open their dresses, revealing their chests.  
And there, just beneath their bras, were their soulmate's names written with beautiful black ink. One of them was only partially visible, the rest of it having been cut from her chest, leaving only blood and flesh behind.  
Sherlock stood up, dusting off as John closed the victim's dresses. "So," the doctor began, "both have definitely been strangled and tried defending themselves against their attacker, which is obvious since they both have blood in their hands without visible injuries and the blonde woman has short black hair beneath her fingernails, so-"

He was interrupted by Sherlock who had stood there, listening impatiently.  
"It's obvious that they knew their murderer, who was most likely the brunette's husband and soulmate. She was cheating on him with her friend here and her husband found out, killing them as revenge. Now we've only got to find him and we'll have our murderer."

Lestrade nodded. "There's only one small problem - we've not got his name. He took care of that.", he said , pointing at the mess of blood and flesh on the woman’s chest.

Sherlock gave a wide grin. "Excellent observation, Lestrade. But you forgot that we've got more than enough other clues - the other victim's soulmate's name, for example and both of their faces are still clearly recognizable. So it should be easy finding their murderer."  
He turned slowly, a fascinated glimmer in his eyes, and looked at Watson, who stood there with awe written over his face. And in the thrill of knowing that there was a new murder to be solved, Sherlock forgot about having promised himself not to speak with Watson again, forgot about having sworn to stay away from this man, his soulmate.

 

"Come on, Doctor Watson," said Sherlock, "the game is on."

**Author's Note:**

> If you have any questions about aromanticism / asexuality I'll give my best to answer them.  
> I hope you enjoyed it! :)


End file.
